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The Official Ubuntu Book: The Ubuntu Community

Apr 11, 2008

📄 Contents

␡

Venues
Ubuntu Mailing Lists
IRC Channel List
Teams, Processes, and Community Governance
Getting Involved
Summary

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Ubuntu Mailing Lists

An up-to-date, full page of mailing lists for Ubuntu can be found at http://lists.ubuntu.com/ where users can see a list of available lists, view archived discussions, and can subscribe to lists through a Web interface. Table 8-1 presents the mailing lists organized by topic areas.

Table 8-1. General Ubuntu Lists

List Name	Description
ubuntu-accessibility	Ubuntu accessibility team
ubuntu-announce	Ubuntu announcements
ubuntu-art	Discussion on Ubuntu artwork
ubuntu-backports	Backports discussions
ubuntu-desktop	Desktop team coordination and discussion
ubuntu-devel	Ubuntu developer discussion
ubuntu-devel-announce	Developer-related announcements and information
ubuntu-doc	Documentation team coordination and discussion
ubuntu-doc-commits	Ubuntu documentation team commits
ubuntu-hardened	Ubuntu Linux proactive security deployment and development
kernel-bugs	Kernel bugs tracking
kernel-team	Kernel team discussions
laptop-devel	Laptop-specific development
laptop-testing-team	Ubuntu laptop testing
loco-contacts	Ubuntu local community team (LoCo) contacts
ubuntu-marketing	Discussion on community-based marketing of Ubuntu
ubuntu-marketing	Announcements, feedback, and discussion for Ubuntu mirror maintainers
ubuntu-mirrors	List for those mirroring Ubuntu FTP archives
ubuntu-mono	Packaging Mono for Ubuntu
ubuntu-motu	Mailing list of the Masters of the Universe
ubuntu-news	Interesting news about Ubuntu for users and developers
ubuntu-security-announce	Ubuntu security announcements
sounder	Ubuntu community random chit-chat list
technical-board	Technical board members list
ubuntu-translators	Discussion about translating Ubuntu
ubuntu-users	Ubuntu help and user discussions
ubuntu-women	Ubuntu women

	Ubuntu Bugs and Notification Lists (not discussion lists)
ubuntu-changes-auto	Archive upload notification list, for automated uploads to all Ubuntu releases
ubuntu-bugs	Ubuntu bug tracker changes—HIGH VOLUME
desktop-bugs	Desktop bug tracker changes—HIGH VOLUME
kubuntu-bugs	Kubuntu bug tracker changes
universe-bugs	Universe bug tracker changes—HIGH VOLUME
warty-changes	Warty Warthog archive upload notification list
hoary-changes	Hoary Hedgehog archive upload notification list
breezy-changes	Breezy Badger archive upload notification list
dapper-changes	Dapper Drake archive upload notification list

	Subproject Lists
edubuntu-devel	Edubuntu developer discussion
kubuntu-devel	Kubuntu developer discussion
kubuntu-users	Kubuntu help and user discussions
xubuntu-devel	Xubuntu development discussion

	Infrastructure Development and Support Lists
bazaar	User and development discussion about the Bazaar distributed revision control system
bazaar-announce	Announcements for the Bazaar project
bazaar-commits	Bazaar repository commit notification
bazaar-ng	Bazaar-ng discussion
hct	Discussion about the Hypothetical Changeset tool
launchpad-users	Discussion for Launchpad users
rosetta-users	Rosetta user discussion

	Other Lists
security-review	Discussion about resolving security vulnerabilities

Lists are one of the oldest forms of communication by e-mail. A mailing list provides a single e-mail address that, when mailed to, will then relay the received message to a large number of people. In Ubuntu, lists are topical, and individuals can subscribe to a mailing list if they want to receive information on the list's topic. All mailing lists at Ubuntu are hosted at lists.ubuntu.com. If you would like to send a message to a list, simply e-mail <mailing list name>@lists.ubuntu.com while replacing <mailing list name> with the name of the list you are trying to mail.

With a few exceptions (e.g., the technical board e-mail list), anybody can subscribe to any Ubuntu list. In most cases, the capability to send e-mail to lists is restricted to list members (membership in lists is, of course, open to anyone). This means that all e-mail sent to a list from someone who is not a member of that list is put into a queue to be reviewed by a human "moderator" before it is broadcast to list members. This is done as an anti-spam measure. Users can subscribe to lists and then configure the system to never send e-mail. For several e-mail lists, all messages are moderated. This is largely to ensure that lists remain "low volume" or "announcement only."

Ubuntu's mailing lists are run by the popular Mailman software, which may be familiar to some users. Mailman makes it simple to subscribe to lists, to unsubscribe, and to configure any number of options about mail delivery. One popular option is to receive a daily "digest" of messages rather than a separate e-mail each time a new message is sent. This is all available through a Web interface at http://lists.ubuntu.com. Users can also subscribe to lists by sending an e-mail with "subscribe" in the subject line to <mailing list name>-REQUEST@lists.ubuntu.com.

While each list plays an important role in the Ubuntu community, a few central lists warrant a little more detail and may be a good idea for users to consider subscribing to. These are detailed below.


   ubuntu-announce

This fully moderated list relays all important announcements for the Ubuntu project and usually contains less than one e-mail per week. It is the first place where new releases are announced and where other important information can be found first. If you use Ubuntu, you may want to consider subscribing to this list. If you only subscribe to one list, this should be it.


   ubuntu-devel-announce

This fully moderated list contains announcements related to the development of Ubuntu. It is low volume and contains one to three e-mails per week. If you work with code in Ubuntu, use a development release, or contribute on any technical level, you should be on this list. If you are at all involved in development for Ubuntu, this (in addition to ubuntu-announce) is the list you must subscribe to.


   ubuntu-users

This is a primarily support-oriented list for questions and answers that Ubuntu users have. It is a very high-volume list, but it is an excellent place to ask questions and have them answered. It is a useful general-purpose list for discussion of any issue that pertains primarily to using Ubuntu.


   ubuntu-devel

This list is the primary site for general purpose discussion of Ubuntu development. If you are looking to contribute to Ubuntu in any technical way, you should subscribe to this list and begin to follow the discussion. The list is relatively high volume.


   sounder

Sounder is the unmoderated community "chitchat" list. Sounder is the collective noun to describe a group of "Warthogs" and was initially the e-mail list that supported the small, invite-only group of users who tested the Ubuntu 4.10 Warty Warthog release before it was announced to the world. The list has been kept for historical reasons under the old name but now provides a venue for the discussion of anything that is "off topic" in the other venues. It frequently hosts discussion of Ubuntu news, events, advocacy, and activism and is an important list for any community member who is participating and contributing to Ubuntu in less technical ways.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

While mailing lists provide the primary venue for asynchronous communication (i.e., not at the same time), there is still an important need for synchronous, or real-time, collaboration. Internet relay chat (IRC) fills this niche. While it was designed primarily for group (i.e., many-to-many) communication in "channels," it is also equipped with private messaging capabilities that facilitate one-to-one communication—all instantaneously. It is very similar to instant messaging or chat-room style communication. While time zones and a round globe make it difficult for the global Ubuntu community to meet at the same time, many users and developers take advantage of IRC's capability to let anyone chat about an issue in real time or to ask a question and have it answered immediately.

Like mailing lists, IRC channels provide a venue for a variety of different types of communication in a variety of different subcommunities in Ubuntu. There are many different channels, including channels in a variety of languages. A complete list as of the time of this writing is included below.

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